A visual and textual journey through the participatory processes that inform the work of the Warsaw-based artist.
Polyethylene. Common Task, published on the occasion of Paweł Althamer's exhibition at Museion in Bolzano, is a visual and textual journey through the participatory processes that inform the work of the Warsaw-based artist. Focusing on the sculptural outcome of his research as well as the developments of those social activities that play a key role in the artist's work, the book also reports on the "invasion" of the Museum by twenty-five friends and neighbors of the Polish artist.
With texts by Sebastian Cichocki, Letizia Ragaglia, Andrea Viliani, along with hundreds of images, the book narrates "an adventurous exploration of the unexpressed potential that lies in human action and the real world, as launching pads for the voyage towards others and toward other, possible worlds" (Andrea Viliani).
Paweł Althamer (born 1967 in Warsaw, where he lives and works) studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Solo shows include those at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (2001), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2006), the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan (2007) and the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2011). He has taken part in group exhibitions at leading institutions like the New Museum in New York (2008), the Tate Modern in London (2007), the Haus der Kunst in Munich (2004) and the Ludwig Museum in Cologne (2002 and 2001), and numerous international events including the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), the Venice Biennale (2003), Documenta 10 in Kassel (1997) and Skulptur Projekte in Münster (2007). In 2004 he won the Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe and in 2010 the Aachener Kunstpreis.
